Electric drivetrain innovations: How tomorrow's cars will drive

The shift to electrification is one of the biggest changes the automotive sector has seen during its century-long history. In its earliest years, there was little indication as to what would provide the motive force for the new-fangled ‘horseless carriages’ and electric motors, petrol and even steam engines were developed in parallel. But after the petrol engine achieved dominance in the early decades of the 20th century, the automotive industry spent many decades refining what was essentially the same technology those early cars had possessed.

That’s not to say there was no innovation; but in the years since the introduction of the first truly successful commercial hybrid vehicle, the Toyota Prius, have seen the pace of development in the sector take off in a way it has never seen before.

The primacy of the internal combustion engine (ICE), whether in its petrol- or diesel-burning form, is now seeing what is probably its first real challenge.